Could Blu-ray and HD-DVD unite?

What is the next big war to rock the multimedia world? Well, unless you have been living on a desert island, you will know that it is the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD battle to see which will be the DVD format of the future. And in this writer's opinion, Blu-ray was winning, with a whole host of companies behind the format. Now, however, it looks like there is a possibility of the two formats uniting.

"Listening to the voice of the consumers, having two rival formats is disappointing and we haven't totally given up on the possibility of integration or compromise." - Ryoji Chubachi, Sony's president-elect.

Chubachi's comments mark the second time that a Sony executive has signalled the possibility of a compromise between the two camps. In January, Ken Kutaragi, executive deputy president of Sony, said a format war was not in the public interest and that Sony had not ruled out the possibility of uniting the formats.